As Jesus’s disciples we’re urged not to dread:
the hairs are all counted on each of our heads.
For as God holds the sparrows in loving concern
so our lives are held too; and in life we can learn
that when hardship comes, as it will, to the just,
God’s love is still near: it calls us to trust.

Yes, to trust that even the people with whom
we’re in conflict are loved; that the rooms
in God’s house are not only for those
who agree with our views, wear similar clothes.
The “sword” Jesus brings – love, sharp as a knife –
divides the deathly from that which brings life;
but neither hatred nor rage is given excuse –
caring’s the reason that sword is turned loose;
and if on occasion a family’s at odds
it may help to recall that all members are God’s
children, and thus equally cherished:
forget not forgiveness; let anger soon perish.
For Christ did not say we’re forbidden to love
our children or parents, just not placed above
his way of the cross: his way of self-giving,
of mercy and grace – the way of full living.

Let us therefore repeat that we don’t need to dread
(though the follicles fall from each of our heads!)
Just as God holds the sparrows in loving concern
our lives are held too; thus in life may we learn
that when hardship comes, as it will, to the just,
God’s love remains near; and so, let us trust . . .

I.
At first it feels like a circle closed,
a journey completed,
this reminder of the mountain where
Peter, James and John saw the Lord transfigured,
speaking with Elijah and Moses,
the voice that thundered from the enclosing cloud
filling the disciples with fear.
It is Christ himself who speaks to us here,
the Lord crucified and now resurrected,
proclaiming his authority, and for a moment
the apostles might be tempted
to think the mission, surely, is accomplished,
goal achieved: God reigning through Christ;
and perhaps the eleven look around the peak
to see if Moses and Elijah will again appear
for congratulatory clasps of the hand.

But the circle has not closed; the journey
has not finished, it is open-ended
as the arching sky and as the road below
that leads to the distant horizon; open
as the mission that here Christ gives us,
as the promise he makes to be always with us,
from now to the end of days.
For disciples must be made
in and from every nation,
taught Christ’s ways and words and sent
anew to serve the men and women of the earth.

II.
See how the slanting sun, moving across
these Galilean hills, takes its seat on the rim
of the wider world, inviting our eyes
to seek, not the shades of prophets past,
but the shimmer of the new world to come.
See how, as we lift our heads in the gaze
that follows Christ’s lifting from the earth,
we discover no mystifying cloud,
nor faces from only scriptural glory.
Rather see the shapes of the yet-to-be
appearing in the echoes of his words:

There we see Paul, in conversation with Peter;
and there is Barnabas, and Phoebe, and Lydia
speaking with Thomas, who will travel to India;
we can see Boniface, and Patrick, and Columba,
standing beside Francis and John and Charles;
a little further over: Dorothy Ripley who laboured
for slaves in America; Mary Slessor, who served
so faithfully in Nigeria; Elizabeth Fry, who
did her work close to home; just a few
among hosts of other men and women
come to this summit, hearts receiving
Christ’s commission for them; whose
long shadows shine, but in whose shadow –

look, just over here – stands another
familiar figure who, like them, will be helping
to re-shape the world
that so needs our obedience to Christ’s love: